Official Submission: Iran

PANELISTS:

Asghar Farhadi

Writer/Director/
Producer

MODERATOR: Tom Grater

"This idea of a society that creates a hero, has a lot of expectations for them, and how they behave towards them, was very interesting to me." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Georgia

PANELISTS:

Levan Koguashvili

Director/Producer

Phedon Papamichael

Cinematographer

MODERATOR: Damon Wise

"I don't remember who, but one of the great American Western directors said, 'Our cowboys are real cowboys.' Well, our criminals were real criminals." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Morocco

PANELISTS:

Nabil Ayouch

Writer/Director/
Producer

MODERATOR: Anna Smith

"When I was young, I knew how to love myself and connect with myself through arts and culture: specifically a cultural center." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Finland

PANELISTS:

Juho Kuosmanen

Co-Writer/Director

MODERATOR: Diana Lodderhose

"I felt that this book would be leading me to a film where I can actually make my dream come true and make a film in a train in Russia." Read Story Here

Official Submission: The Netherlands

PANELISTS:

Shariff Korver

Director

MODERATOR: Damon Wise

So what I did was just go for the best actors that I could find, and I gave them six months to transform. I hired a military advisor. ... They learn how to walk, breathe, talk as a soldier." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Japan

PANELISTS:

Ryuske Hamaguchi

Co-Writer/Director

MODERATOR: Matt Grobar

"It actually was very close to a lot of the themes that I deal with in my work." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Canada

PANELISTS:

Ivan Grbovic

Co-Writer/Director

Sara Mishara

Co-Writer/
Cinematographer

MODERATOR: Damon Wise

"The film is about exploitation—the exploiters and exploited. And that’s a subject you can only explore from many different points of view." Read Story Here

Official Submission: South Korea

PANELISTS:

Ryoo Seung-wan

Co-Writer/Director

Kang Hye-jung

Producer

MODERATOR: Valerie Complex

"[At that time] the international community recognized Korea more as an entity than a country." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Austria

PANELISTS:

Sebastian Meise

Co-Writer/Director

Franz Rogowski

Actor

MODERATOR: Andreas Wiseman

"In Germany alone, at least 100,000 lives were destroyed in this way. It was a bit of a shock to know nothing about it..." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Kosovo

PANELISTS:

Blerta Basholli

Writer/Director

Yllka Gashi

Actor

MODERATOR: Diana Lodderhose

"We cried at times. We did. We shared stories that are not fun to share. But when you share those, you feel better. It’s kind of a therapy." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Germany

PANELISTS:

Dan Stevens

EP/Actor

Maria Schrader

Co-Writer/
Director/EP

MODERATOR: Nancy Tartaglione

"Instantly there were so many questions in my head…What is love? Is it possible with someone who is not living?" Read Story Here

Official Submission: Iceland

PANELISTS:

Noomi Rapace

EP/Actor

Valdimar Jóhannsson

Co-Writer/Director

MODERATOR: Anthony D'Alessandro

"It felt like you were swallowed by the universe, and everything was fading, and we were just going deeper and deeper into the world of Lamb." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Poland

PANELISTS:

Jan P. Matuszyński

Director

Tomasz Ziętek

Actor

MODERATOR: Tom Grater

"This film is a reminder that we had that kind of thing in Poland [in] 1983…we really don’t want to go back there." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Israel

PANELISTS:

Eran Kolirin

Writer/Director

Alex Bakri

Actor

MODERATOR: Anna Smith

"I want my films to always have two levels: one more ironical and one which is more deep." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Malta

PANELISTS:

Alex Camilleri

Writer/Director/
Producer/Editor

MODERATOR: Tom Grater

"We improvised the dialogue together and recorded it on a camera. We then used our discoveries and wrote them back into the script." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Colombia

PANELISTS:

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Writer/Director/
Producer

MODERATOR: Damon Wise

"Tilda's up for anything. That's why I adore her, because, she always says yes to everything. [I adored] how she immersed herself in the film." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Serbia

PANELISTS:

Ivan Ikic

Writer/Director

MODERATOR: Tom Grater

"There were plenty of roles of people with intellectual disabilities in the film, but they are played by professional actors always. So there is no previous experience of them playing roles...similar to their experience." Read Story Here

Official Submission: India

PANELISTS:

P.S. Vinothraj

Writer/Director

Vignesh Shivan

Producer

MODERATOR: Andreas Wiseman

"Producers like Mr. Vignesh Shivan and Ms. Nayanthara backing the film could encourage a lot of filmmakers to come up with such subjects, which are often turned a blind eye to." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Mexico

PANELISTS:

Tatiana Huezo

Writer/Director

MODERATOR: Diana Lodderhose

"I think definitely one of the biggest challenges in doing this was in trying to relate the story in a very violent context through the eyes of a child." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Croatia

PANELISTS:

Danilo Šerbedžija

Director

Lana Barić

Writer/Actor

MODERATOR: Anna Smith

"That kind of reaction was really important for me, because if it did bother them, then it means we did provoke some kind of reaction which was genuine." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Spain

PANELISTS:

Fernando León de Aranoa

Writer/Director/Co-Producer

Javier Bardem

Actor

MODERATOR: Nancy Tartaglione

"He has a kind of control over all the different angles of his life… and then the film tells about this moment when he’s losing control and how he tries to keep this at any price." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Italy

PANELISTS:

Lorenzo Mieli

Producer

Daria D'Antonio

Cinematographer

Filippo Scotti

Actor

MODERATOR: Andreas Wiseman

“I tried to catch as much as I could from Paolo without really asking personal things, because I wanted to see the character as a character and not as Paulo...." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Sweden

PANELISTS:

Ronnie Sandahl

Writer/Director/EP

Erik Enge

Actor

Alfred Enoch

Actor

Frida Gustavsson

Actor

MODERATOR: Damon Wise

"When we were drunk, we made a pact that, when I was ready, I was going to make the movie based on his story, and, from his side, he would say no to everybody who approached him." Read Story Here

Official Submission: France

PANELISTS:

Agathe Rousselle

Actor

MODERATOR: Antonia Blyth

I couldn’t stop reading [the script]. I was just so into it. … It was like reading some kind of mythological tale. A very f*cked up one, but still." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Russia

PANELISTS:

Alexander Rodnyansky

Producer

Kira Kovalenko

Co-Writer/Director

MODERATOR: Diana Lodderhose

"I realized that I needed to find the place that I could tell this story...and this place was a small mining town close to the place I was living." Read Story Here

Official Submission: Czech Republic

PANELISTS:

David Ondříček

Co-Writer/
Director/Producer

Václav Neužil

Actor

Martha Issová

Actor

MODERATOR: Nancy Tartaglione

"I’'m not supposed to portray a legend or an idol, it's impossible. I just realized I'm supposed to, and I want to, portray a human being." Read Story Here